A new global survey has found a striking disconnect between how dangerous the air people breathe actually is and how worried they are about it, a gap researchers say could be undermining public pressure for cleaner air policies.
While 99% of the world’s population breathes air that exceeds World Health Organization safety limits, nearly half of adults globally (47%) say they are not worried at all about being harmed by the air they breathe.
These figures have been revealed in the World Risk Poll 2026, published by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation in partnership with Gallup.
The survey found that only 12% of people report having personally experienced harm from air pollution in the past two years, even though air pollution was linked to nearly 8 million deaths worldwide in 2023, according to the Health Effects Institute.
The disconnect is most pronounced in the world’s most polluted countries. The poll found that in nations where PM2.5 exceeds WHO guidelines by seven times or more, people report the highest rates of personal harm (a median of 8%) but the lowest levels of worry (44%).
In Pakistan, which frequently tops annual average exposure lists, 62% of the population claim to be unworried about air pollution.
By contrast, in countries with cleaner air, (where pollution is a mere two to three times above WHO limits) worry about harm climbs to 51%, even though reported harm is lower.
Researchers suggest this pattern may reflect a form of ‘acquired resilience,’ in which communities exposed to chronic, high levels of pollution gradually normalise the risk rather than actively worry about it. The report warns this normalisation should not be mistaken for the absence of a problem and cautions that when the most exposed populations are also the least concerned, it can weaken the public pressure needed to drive policy change, creating a cycle where harm persists.
The survey also uncovered geographic patterns. People in cities consistently express more worry about air pollution than those in towns or rural areas, a pattern that aligns with WHO data showing urban residents face greater pollution exposure.
The gap was widest in Mongolia, where 97% of city-dwellers worried about air quality compared with 49% in rural areas and in several Central Asian and Balkan nations, including Armenia, Georgia, Albania and Greece, where geography and concentrated urban industry exacerbate the problem in cities.
The report’s authors call for stronger risk communication and greater transparency around pollution data to close the gap between exposure and concern. They also point to a growing wave of citizen science initiatives and legal challenges against governments over air quality failures, suggesting that low expressed worry may understate a deeper shift in public engagement on the issue.
The findings are drawn from more than 143,000 interviews conducted across 140 countries and territories in 2025, making it one of the largest studies of public risk perception ever conducted.
The full report can be read here.
Photo: Martin Sanchez
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